Man sentenced in beach accident

A man arrested in April after a 55-year-old sunbather was run over by a pickup truck on Crescent Beach was sentenced Thursday to just over four years in prison.

On April 2 last year, a pickup truck ran over Sarajane Brock while she was lying in a beach chair, just north of the Fort Matanzas beach ramp.

Brock's pelvis was crushed and the truck's driver, 32-year-old Vasyl Alexander Didoha, was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence resulting in serious bodily injury.

In addition to 51 months in prison time, Circuit Court Judge Robert Mathis ordered that Didoha's license be suspended five years. The suspension will run concurrently with his prison sentence.

''That's a pretty huge sentence,'' Assistant State Attorney Chris France said. ''He really didn't have any prior criminal record. He maybe had a couple of arrests that never turned into convictions.''

France said the maximum sentence the judge could have imposed is five years.

In May, Brock stated in a letter that she has gone through a lengthy recuperation process, including surgery, and that she has nerve damage in her left leg and foot.

At that time, she was confined to a wheelchair, living with her sister in Jacksonville and unable to go back to teaching at William Moseley Elementary in Palatka.

''I am no longer able to work as a first grade teacher. I have taught for 28 years. As of now, I do not know if I will ever be able to return to work, but I do know I cannot return to the classroom and that breaks my heart,'' Brock wrote.

Brock couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, but France said Brock is out of her wheelchair, off her walker and back teaching at the same elementary school.

Still, France said, Brock lost a lot of vacation and sick days she had been saving for retirement.

On the day she was run over, a green 1998 Chevrolet truck had pulled toward the beach's waterline and was backing up toward the dunes when it ran over Brock. Witnesses who saw the incident had to lift the truck off her.

''She was in a beach chair screaming. The driver apparently did not see her and tried to get out of the sand. The back tires continued to spin while the lady was screaming,'' witness Sarah Prince, of Georgia, said in an affidavit.

Law enforcement officers said they found five full Busch beer bottles in the truck, along with seven empty Busch bottles. Didoha told officers he had been drinking alcohol regularly since he was 13 years old, and that he drank a 12-pack of beer a night, reports said.

Didoha's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Rebeccah Beller, said she was trying to get the judge to require that Didoha seek treatment at the Phoenix House, a drug and alcohol treatment center near Ocala that doesn't commit patients.

''We were asking for the judge to impose a sentence that would allow him to be out of prison, but would still require him to receive counseling,'' Beller said.